


All For The Best

by anextrapart



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:51:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5319362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anextrapart/pseuds/anextrapart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'll figure it all out later</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because there should always be repercussions.
> 
> -
> 
> Mostly canon compliant through episode 3x04 but for the fact that Cooper has not contacted Tom in this universe.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

Hearing the sound of the doorknob turn, Liz quickly ends the conversation she was having and stuffs her phone into her pocket.  
  
When Red enters the room, back from some unspecified late-night errand that she probably doesn't want to know the specifics of, she's sitting on the couch and trying to look as normal as possible.  
  
"Hey," she greets him. "Everything go okay?"  
  
Red glances around the room—perfectly aware that no one else is there—and raises an eyebrow.  
  
"Who were you talking to?"  
  
Shit, shit, _shit_.  
  
"No one."  
  
Smooth, Keen. He'll definitely believe _that_.  
  
"We're fugitives—we don't have phone calls with no one." His voice shifts from disbelieving to _concerned_ , which in her opinion is far, far worse. "Lizzie, I can't keep us safe if I don't know what's going on."  
  
Damn him.  
  
"It was Tom," she blurts, thinking it won't be so bad if she just tells him—he might not even care all that much, "and I know you didn't want me to talk to him, but he just wants to help and I really think that if we just-"  
  
She cuts herself off at the odd look on his face.  
  
"You've been talking to Tom."  
  
"I have."  
  
He doesn't look angry when he says, soft, "You promised me that you wouldn't contact him."  
  
Of all the things she expects him to say, to do, it is not this.  
  
"Elizabeth, I thought…"

He looks like a little boy, all crumpled shoulders and downcast eyes.  
  
This? This is bad.

She's a profiler, she should be able to figure out what's going on here, but it is so much harder when it's your own life, when it's a person that you know. Especially when the person in question is Raymond Reddington.  
  
There's something there, something in his expression that she isn't able to place, and it _itches_ beneath her skin.  
  
She doesn't know what to do with this.  
  
"You thought what?" she asks.  
  
He searches her face, not another word passing between them, and she tries, she really does, to communicate whatever it is he's looking for.  
  
The shutter behind his eyes goes down.  
  
She's failed another test.  
  
And how is this fair, that he's testing her without her knowledge first? He's recording answers without letting her know the questions, the jackass, and so what else is she supposed to do?  
  
She's _tired_ , damn it. Not in any way that sleep can fix, but in a way that comes from being on edge all the time, without reprieve. She doesn't have the energy reserves that it takes to decode his half-sentences and facial expressions. It would be nice—just once, since it's been so damn long—if something could just be easy.  
  
"Never mind," he says. "It doesn't matter."  
  
Whatever it is, it's clear that it _does_ matter—that what he really wants is for whatever it is to matter to her, but she just can't do this right now. She's tired, and she's lonely, and she's _a fugitive_ , and she _can't_.  
  
"Okay." She lets him retreat, will play this game with him. This is familiar, she knows the steps, and so she can do this. "If you're sure."  
  
She turns to move to her room, wishes him a good night.  
  
"I'll see you in the morning?" she asks, and she doesn't know why it's phrased like that, like a question, but there's this weird, tiny part of her—the part still itching beneath her skin, the part that she can't quite grasp—that needs reassurance.  
  
"Of course, Lizzie. Get some rest."  
  
"You too."  
  
In the privacy of her room, she stares at the burner phone in her hand for a long moment before tucking it back into the pocket of her jacket. Red didn't ask her to, and so she won't break off contact with Tom. Not yet, not when he could still help bring this whole mess to an end.  
  
She just wants this all to stop, wants some control back over her own damn life.  
  
Red will surely come around in time. She'll work on pulling information from him then, when she's not so tired and he's not so… whatever the hell he is right now.  
  
They'll figure it all out later.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She will eventually understand that this is a mistake.  
  
(It will be too late.)

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

He sets the meeting in an abandoned warehouse.  
  
Lizzie is curious the whole way there, asking him a steady barrage of questions, but Red keeps the information to himself—he'll lose his nerve otherwise. As they exit the car, he tries to ignore the sharp finality in the sound of her door closing.  
  
It's all for the best.  
  
He should have known better, known that it would end this way, that he'd never measure up in her eyes. He'd thought they'd turned a corner—they've been getting along so well, been spending so much time together.  
  
Sometimes she even smiles at him and he can almost believe that she-  
  
Well.  
  
He really should have known better.  
  
"Come on, Red," she prods as they enter the building. "Who are we meeting?"  
  
"Tom," he says, tries not to spit it like a curse.  
  
Her eyes widen. "Really? You're willing to work with him on this?"  
  
"No-" he will never work with that man again "-but you are."  
  
He sees her trying to put the pieces together, wondering what sort of game he's playing here. He wishes it were a game—anything other than what it actually is.  
  
"What does that even mean, Red?"  
  
"It means that now you can figure out how to proceed—you said he has a plan." He shrugs like this isn't killing him. "I assume you two will see that plan through to completion."  
  
"And what are you going to do?" she asks, clearly not missing his pointed use of _you two_.  
  
"I'll go back to dismantling the cabal through my own methods."  
  
He's leaving her, in other words. Something he'd never thought he would do.  
  
"And you're just making this decision _for_ me?" He can see the anger brewing, vibrating beneath her skin. "Like I'm a child?"  
  
"You're the one who made this decision, Lizzie. You made it the second you invited him back into our lives-"  
  
Our lives, _ours_ , don't you see?  
  
Why don't you _see me?_  
  
"-and I have very good reasons for not wanting him involved."  
  
"So this is it?" she asks, openly angry now. "All this time messing around in my life and you're just going to walk away because you're jealous that you don't know it all, that someone else might be able to help?"  
  
"This isn't about that. It's about safety, for you and for myself, and about where you truly want to be." He wishes it were with him. He wishes so much that she could want to be with him. "This is about trust and about how that man isn't worthy of it."  
  
"I can handle him, Red." She glares at him, growls, "And what about me? How about putting a little trust in me?"  
  
"I did try," he says softly.  
  
_You promised_ , he almost cries. _You looked me right in the eyes and you_ promised.  
  
She sighs heavily and he spends a desperate, hopeful moment believing that she'll refuse to go, that she'll fight to stay at his side.  
  
"How will I contact you? If something comes up?"  
  
(He's always been a fool, him and his hopes.)  
  
"You can't."  
  
It's the only way he'll survive this. He can't spend the rest of his life waiting for that call, hoping that one day she'll change her mind. He can't keep doing this to himself.  
  
He'd die for her, but if there's one thing he's finally sure will never change, it's this:  
  
He is so, so in love,  
  
and she doesn't want him at all.  
  
"Goodbye, Elizabeth."  
  
Somehow, he walks away. He never imagined the need to part from her like this, always figured a bullet would take him out of commission first, hopefully leaving him with just enough time to remember the light of her smile before he was gone for good.  
  
He thinks he understands, on some level—Tom is familiar to her, a glimpse back to her old life. It's probably natural that she would want that familiarity back when the rest of her life now—when Red himself—is nothing but a reminder of all that she's lost.  
  
But the ways that man has hurt her… Red can't watch her willfully ignore all the terrible things that have passed between them.  
  
Tom dogging at their heels endangers them both—perhaps splitting up will diffuse some of that. It will divide the cabal's attention, increase the opportunities to weaken them. He can still clear her name, still try to keep her safe. They don't need to be in contact for that.  
  
It was always going to be Red on one team and Tom on the other. At least this way she will be content.  
  
He sticks around and watches from a distance long enough to see Tom arrive, see them greet each other with a hug.  
  
It really is all for the best.  
  
She's always been happiest when he's far away.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Liz is in a bit of a daze as she and Tom head out, and so she lets him babble away about this plan and that, about all the ways that he's going to fix everything. They get into his car and drive away, Tom still talking and her still trying to process what just happened.  
  
Red just… left.  
  
He _left_ her.  
  
What the hell is wrong with him? How can he do this, just walk away because not everything is under his control?  
  
How can he not understand that this life she's been forced to lead for the past few weeks isn't the one that she wants? She knows it's not the one that he wants either, no matter how much he may try to convince himself and everyone else otherwise, so why can't he be a little more sympathetic to how difficult this has been for her?  
  
"You okay?" Tom asks, interrupting her thoughts.  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine."  
  
Red didn't even ask if she wanted to leave or not. He just passed her off like some toy he was tired of playing with.  
  
"You've been really quiet," Tom presses, his hands relaxed on the steering wheel.  
  
"Just thinking. There's a lot to plan."  
  
Red had looked so upset when he'd left her there—like it was the last thing he wanted to do.  
  
She leans her head against the window with a sigh.  
  
Maybe this is some misguided attempt to protect her. It's odd, he's more prone to not letting her out of his sight when there's a threat, but it isn't unprecedented for him to make a unilateral decision when trying to keep her safe.  
  
Regardless, what's done is done now.  
  
She makes an effort to engage Tom in conversation for the rest of the drive. It's another few hours before they pull up outside of a small motel.  
  
"Will you get us a room?" Tom hands her a wad of bills. "I need to make a call."  
  
"Sure."  
  
She goes through the process of renting a room for the night, heads back to the car when she's done to find him leaning against it casually, seemingly not a care in the world.  
  
Tom gives her a puzzled, hurt look when he discovers that she booked a room with two beds instead of one.  
  
She sighs, knowing what's coming when she asks him, "What?"  
  
"Is that how this is?"  
  
"For now, yes."  
  
"It's just, on the boat…" He trails off suggestively.  
  
She wants to yell at him for being so selfish. Or maybe she was the one being selfish, back on the boat, taking what he was offering because she was lonely and scared, but that isn't what she wants now.  
  
"That was different. We were saying goodbye."  
  
He takes a step closer to her. "I wasn't saying goodbye, Liz."  
  
"Well, I thought that we were." She takes a step back from him to even things out again, to try and make it very clear exactly what is and isn't on the table here. "This, you and me, I can't focus on that now."  
  
"We can do both."    
  
"I need to focus on getting out of this mess-"  
  
"I'm here to help now, it will be easier on you," he insists. "Liz, I love you, you're my wife-"  
  
"I'm not, though."  
  
_In a way, I never really was,_ she doesn't add.  
  
"Right." He looks away. "Thanks for reminding me."  
  
"I didn't say that to hurt you. But I can't just jump back in and pretend that everything that's happened recently didn't happen." She motions between them. "If this is going to work, it's going to be after everything else is all straightened out."  
  
She tries to catch his eyes when he doesn't respond.  
  
"Are you okay with that?" she presses. She needs some confirmation, here. She needs to be sure that there are rules. That is, _was_ , the problem with Red—there's never any rules.  
  
Tom makes an aborted sound, accompanied by a small facial tic she's never seen in him before, but it's gone as quickly as it came and when he looks up to meet her eyes, he's calm and accepting.  
  
"Sure, of course," he agrees. "Whatever you need."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
He smiles, and she feels like maybe things will be okay. It's not the way it used to be—they're on the run and something horrible could happen at any moment—but there is familiarity here. It's in the cadence of their conversation, in they way they move around each other in a room.  
  
This may eventually be salvageable.  
  
For now though, it's time to get to work.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out that Tom's plan doesn't amount to much more than hunting down Karakurt and attempting to weaken the cabal by incriminating crucial members.  
  
The trail on Karakurt has gone cold—Tom suggests that they reach out to one of her old friends in the FBI, but she seriously doubts that they will help. Not with Ressler still so determined to bring her in.  
  
He then suggests asking Cooper for help, which she flat-out refuses—she won't get him and his family involved in this. It's far too dangerous.  
  
Tabling the Karakurt idea for the time being, they start with the first name on their list of accessible cabal members, though they don't have Red's reach. Tom makes an indignant face when she points that out.  
  
"Look," he says, hunched over a laptop and researching their first target online, "I'm just saying, we don't need him to get this done. I don't know why you keep bringing him up."  
  
"I was only pointing out that we should be realistic about our targets. We don't have his resources—that's not meant as an insult, it's just a fact."  
  
"I'm perfectly capable of handling this."  
  
"Did I say that you aren't?"  
  
"You implied it."  
  
She rolls her eyes behind his back. "Well, I'm sorry for implying it."  
  
"Apology accepted." He then points to the screen. "There—that's our way in."  
  
She reads over his shoulder, nodding as she goes. "Yeah, that will work. If we get the information behind that, release it to the public…"  
  
"This guy will be finished." Tom smacks the table excitedly. "Fantastic. This is going to be a breeze."  
  
She nods with him, smiles at the right times as he continues the conversation, and wishes she were more excited.  
  
Mostly, she's still just tired.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Their first operation goes smoothly, followed by a successful second.  
  
By the third, Liz wonders if she's ever going to feel more optimistic about this than she already does.  
  
By the fifth, she decides that she probably won't.  
  
Tom doesn't seem to notice. She's either gotten very good at faking her mood or he is just refusing to see what he doesn't want to.  
  
After the sixth person that they take down where she can't summon much more genuine feeling than a sort of detached satisfaction that one less criminal is operating freely, she realizes something.  
  
The familiarity that she was searching for, that she hoped would be comforting… it's gone.  
  
Or, rather, it's still there, but whatever support she was looking for, whatever help she was hoping to gain from it—it's only there on the surface. It's shaped right and says all the right things, but it's taken on a strange hazy quality. Like if she looks too closely, it's all going to evaporate.  
  
She doesn't think she'll like what's underneath.  
  
This is the situation she was dealt though, isn't it? Not anything she can do about it now.  
  
She resolves not to look too closely and gets back to work.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Alone, Liz doesn't hear the man creeping up on her, but she certainly feels the knife pressed threateningly into the small of her back.  
  
"The Director would like to politely request that you stop interfering."  
  
Just as panic starts to properly set in—panic and a sort of helpless anger at her own stupidity for being alone on this street so late—a shot rings out.  
  
For a second she thinks that she misread the situation, that the knife is actually a gun and that shock is momentarily suspending the pain of a wound that will surely kill her. Instead, she turns and sees that the man is the one dead on the ground, bullet snug in his brain and a wicked-looking knife lax in his hand.  
  
She scans the rooftops, the windows, any available line of sight—none reveal the mystery sniper. Feeling completely out-of-sorts, she hurries back to a more populated area of the city.  
  
She finds a note tucked in her jacket pocket the next day—it must have been slipped there on a brush pass because she never felt a thing.  
  
It should probably make her angry. It's been months—he _left_ her, stranded her completely without his assistance and without any consideration for her opinion on the matter. He has no right to have her followed. He never had a right to have her followed.  
  
But it's such an annoyingly _Red_ thing to do that this little bit of contact succeeds in making her smile.  
  
She really hasn't had much cause to smile recently.  
  
After she reads it, she folds the note back up and tucks it into the lining of her shoe to keep it safe and close.

She doesn't tell Tom anything about the incident. He'd get petulant if he knew and she doesn't have the energy to deal with his whining about it. It's not like they'll be able to stop whatever tail Red has on them anyway—neither of them had even noticed it until now.  
  
Life continues on, darting from place to place and digging up some of the worst of humanity, people who have done their best to ruin her life and and the lives of countless others.  
  
She takes the note out to read on bad days, gains a little warmth from the simple words.  
  
It helps.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She has discovered a crucial piece.  
  
(The rest still comes too slowly.)

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

_Remember- still, always:_

_Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing—if you are in need, I will be there._  
  
_This will all be over soon. I promise you'll make it home._  
  
_-R_

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She sees him, weeks later, in a crowded ballroom where she and Tom are trying to gain the upper hand on some cabal associate or another—she's losing track of the list, thinks they're on the ninth or maybe the tenth, one endless lead after another, faces and names and dates and she's still so damn tired and then he's _there_.  
  
In a small circle of people he's animated as ever, always the crowd-pleaser, but she thinks he looks tired too. He's lost weight, the kind you lose from too much stress combined with not enough sleep.  
  
The urge to go to him is overwhelming—a startling, desperate wave of just _missing_ him.  
  
She could go over, just for a minute. Just to hear his voice.

There wouldn't be any harm in it, would there? He'll probably think it's fun, conversing and trying to outdo each others lies, both of them under their respective aliases and fooling everyone. They've always had fun playing together and then-  
  
Red looks over, and their eyes meet.  
  
She's completely unprepared for the expression that passes over his face.  
  
He recovers quickly, but she knows what she saw and it keeps her rooted where she stands as he excuses himself from his group and hurries away.  
  
Away from her.  
  
He hurries _away_ from her.  
  
He's _never_ -  
  
And he looked…  
  
When Liz was a little girl, Sam kept a photograph tucked in the back of his wallet. She was always confused and a little frightened when he would take the photo out, because why would he want to keep something that always made him look so terribly sad? She asked him once who it was, remembers the quiet way he told her that he'd once had a girlfriend that had died in a car accident.

They were only twenty years old.  
  
They'd been planning to get married.  
  
Sam said she was the love of his life. Liz remembers that specifically, the exact sound of his voice as he said it, because it was the first time she'd ever heard that phrase and it had all seemed so huge and important and _sad_.  
  
It's that night in the ballroom when she realizes it wasn't wounded pride or professional jealousy or distrust that ultimately made Red leave her behind. It's all so much simpler than that.  
  
He just looked at her the way Sam used to look at that old photograph.  
  
Like every single thing he ever wanted was right in front of him but for an impenetrable wall of glass, and only the faintest, most fragile thread of control was keeping him from just collapsing to his knees and crying out against the barrier.  
  
She knows now.  
  
She broke his heart.  
  
And it's not fair—she didn't even know she was responsible for his heart, how was she supposed to know that she could _break_ it? How could he not tell her, warn her, something?  
  
How could he not know that, reciprocated feelings or no, she would never treat him so carelessly?  
  
She realizes that it doesn't really matter what she knew then. All that matters is what she knows now, and what she knows now is that she is not okay with having caused him so much pain—stubborn, non-communicative idiot though he may be.  
  
It's not because she owes him anything.  
  
It's not about whether he deserves it or not.  
  
It's just…  
  
God, she _broke_ his _heart_.  
  
How can she live with hurting him like that?  
  
And maybe he broke hers a little too, leaving like he did. Maybe this is why they're always such a damn mess around each other, and maybe this is why now—ever since finding that note in her pocket, really—she misses him like a severed limb.  
  
There have always been so many things in the way that she's never really entertained the possibility of any of this before, but hell—it's not like she's ever really going back to her old life. Not the way it was. She's not going to be able to rejoin the FBI.  
  
But maybe… maybe, _this_.  
  
She lets herself think about it. Gives herself one solid, honest moment to consider the fantasy she wouldn't tell the djinn—goes that extra step and lets her partner in the fantasy have a face, a smile, a hand holding the child between them just as adoringly as Liz herself...  
  
_Oh._  
  
Oh, she's been such a fool.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She finally understands.  
  
(It is still too late.)  


 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

  
"I'm leaving," she tells Tom shortly after the ballroom realization and almost six months after she and Red parted ways.  
  
He doesn't look up from the laptop he's bent over. "Going for a run? I think it's supposed to rain later."  
  
"No, Tom, I'm _leaving_."  
  
It would have been easier to sneak out and leave a note. She should have just done that and-  
  
_No._ She needs to end this for good. She needs to get back to Red, see what she can do about fixing what's broken.  
  
Tom shuts the laptop, rubs his eyes once as he stands to face her.  
  
"What are you saying, Liz?"  
  
"I don't want to do this anymore—I'm exhausted. This isn't working. I want out."  
  
Something flashes in his eyes, crawls over his face.  
  
And he doesn't look like Tom anymore.  
  
"Do you really think I'm going to let that happen?" he asks quietly. "You really think I'm going to let you go back to him?"  
  
She doesn't ask how he knows she's going back to Red—of course she's going back to Red.  
  
"You're not letting me do anything—I'm making a decision."

She's made far too few of those for herself recently, allowed herself to get into the habit of letting others decide, but no more. _She_ is making this decision, and her decision is to go find Red.  
  
She's going home.  
  
"Oh, Liz." Tom shakes his head like she's a particularly dumb child. "You really don't get it, do you? You don't get to decide this."  
  
She pulls out her gun, points it at him with steady hands—apparently this is who they are, now.  
  
"And how are you going to stop me?"  
  
"You're not listening." He smiles, slow and easy, and it rolls her stomach. "I'm not going to stop you from leaving—leave if you want. But what's that old movie cliche?" He taps his chin, mocking. "Oh, that's right— _if I can't have you, no one can_."  
  
She's never been afraid of him before.

"What the hell are you talking about?"  
  
"Exactly what I've already said: you are not going back to him. He'll be long dead by the time you reach him."  
  
She shakes her head at the threat, scoffs. "You're never going to find him."  
  
"You think I haven't noticed you figuring out how to contact him? All those little glances at the newspaper and the visits to those weird chatrooms online?"  
  
_Shit._ "He'll know better than to fall for some stupid trap of yours."  
  
"You think so? Because I think, were he to believe the message came from you, he'd walk right into a trap—hell, he'll _run_ into that trap. And I'm _very_ good at pretending to be other people, Liz." He takes a step toward her. "So what do you think? Think he'll come running for you?"  
  
Oh, god.  
  
Red will. Of course he will.  
  
"Tom, _don't_."  
  
"Oh, I already did," he says breezily, the same way he used to tell her he'd already completed some chore around the house. _Silly you for not noticing._ "I saw you gathering your stuff before and called up an old friend of mine—hell of a shot, this guy. He and Reddington will be meeting very soon."  
  
_No._  
  
She grips the gun tighter, steadies the hand pointing it at him.  
  
"Tell me where you set the meeting."  
  
He laughs. "Why the hell would I-"  
  
She shoots out his kneecap.  
  
"Tell me where you set the meeting," she repeats as he drops to the ground with a howl of pain.  
  
He's screaming, clutching at his knee, and she kicks his foot to jar the leg painfully.  
  
"Focus."  
  
He's shaking his head, screaming and laughing and it's awful. He's awful. "You won't make it in time. He's as good as dead."  
  
"Give me the meeting location."  
  
"You really fucked this one up, didn't you, Liz?"  
  
She lifts her foot and stomps down _hard_ on his busted knee.  
  
" _Tell me where he is!_ "  
  
Around the screaming and cursing she hears him grit out, "The warehouse!"  
  
"What warehouse?"  
  
"The one where he dumped you with me."  
  
She stares dispassionately down at him, writhing on the floor. "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?"  
  
"You know, I told my guy to shoot to kill but to make sure it doesn't happen too quickly. No headshots—I want him to bleed out, I want him to _know_."  
  
He smiles again, asks, "Do you think he's going to cry for you, Liz?" That awful, ugly smile. "I hope you get to watch him die."  
  
And so as it turns out, in the end, it's really not difficult at all to put a bullet between Tom Keen's eyes.  
  
She tucks the gun into the waistband of her jeans, quickly darts around the room to pick up anything she may need, wipes the surfaces of prints. She'll leave the body—this shouldn't trace back to her. Not in any way that can be proven, at least. There are more important things to worry about right now.  
  
That warehouse is close, she's _close_ , she can make it.  
  
Three hours and she can be there.  
  
Red could have been anywhere in the world when he got the message, it could take him days—she'll probably beat him there. She'll take out the assassin and just wait for him. If she hurries she can shave some time off the trip, maybe be there in even less than three hours.  
  
She'll be able to see him soon.  
  
Just three more hours and she can see him again.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

  
She doesn't get there in time.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read, left kudos, and especially left comments on part one. Your encouragement and heartbroken, anguished wailing means more to me than you can possibly know. Truly.
> 
> Enjoy.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

She hears the shot before she makes it through the warehouse door.  
  
By the time she forces her way inside it has gone eerily silent, and so she scans the large space for any signs of movement.  
  
Instead, she spots a shape on the floor that isn't moving at all.  
  
And suddenly it isn't silent anymore, her pulse roaring in her ears and her every breath coming quick and loud as she sprints to his side.  
  
He's sprawled on his back, a hand on his chest like he'd clutched for it as he fell. There's so much blood—it's clearly worse than last time, it's so much worse than last time.  
  
She drops to her knees beside him, moves his hand and replaces it with both of her own to put pressure on the wound—she needs to slow the bleeding.  
  
"Red?"  
  
He doesn't react and she nearly collapses beneath the rush of panic.  
  
"Red, come on," she pleads, shaking him a little too harshly beneath the press of her hands. "Open your eyes? Please, Red. You need to get up now."  
  
She tries to check for a pulse in his neck, but her hand is shaking and slippery with his blood.  
  
"It's me, look, I'm here," she says desperately. "I'm here. Open your eyes, Red, please."  
  
She can't find a pulse.  
  
Her hand slides from his neck to cradle his face, the other still pressing as hard as she can on his wound. She just needs to slow the bleeding and then he'll be fine. Everything will be fine.  
  
"You need to get up so we can go, okay?"  
  
He's still not moving.  
  
He… he's so pale.  
  
There's blood everywhere, on him and on her hands and clothes and now she's gotten it on his face. This is going to be her last memory of him—a bloodied-up mess and all because of her.  
  
He'll never even know she was here, and it is that thought, the idea that he'll never know just how much she wanted to come back to him, that finally has her crying in earnest.  
  
"Red, you promised—you said you'd always be here when I need you, please, you _promised_. Open your eyes for me," she sobs, wiping some of the blood from his face with a clean corner of her sleeve and ignoring the tears on her own face. "Red, baby, _please_."  
  
All of a sudden she's torn from his side and unfamiliar people are converging on him.  
  
"No!" She struggles violently, kicking and punching, but the arms wrapped around her from behind are too strong.  
  
"Relax," her captor says. "Let them help him."  
  
It's Dembe.  
  
_"Where were you?"_ she screams, eyes still fixed on the frenetic activity surrounding Red. "Where the hell were you, why was he alone?"  
  
"I was not far," he insists, agitated—even his usual calm seems frayed at the sight of Red in such a state, "and he knew the risk."  
  
"You should have been here, you should have been with him! He was all alone, he shouldn't have been alone!"  
  
_She_ should have been with him.  
  
He should have never been here in the first place.  
  
She goes limp in his arms. "Dembe, what if-"  
  
"He's strong."  
  
Her eyes fall on a shape a few feet from Red.  
  
It's his hat.  
  
His hat was knocked off.  
  
Red and his stupid fucking hats, she's going to spend the rest of her life with the image of him being hit with such force that it knocked the hat clear off his head and-  
  
"We got a pulse," one of the medics calls out.  
  
Just like that, the world rights itself around her.  
  
More people are running inside with a gurney, they're loading him up and wheeling him away.  
  
"Dembe, let go—I need to stay with him!" She struggles to break his grip. "He needs to know that I'm here, he doesn't know I'm here!"  
  
"He's unconscious. We'll follow behind them."  
  
"No, stop, he needs me!" She won't let him out of her sight. "He needs me, I'm not leaving him!"  
  
Dembe, bless him, lets her go, and she darts after the gurney and follows it into the back of a nondescript van which has been converted into a makeshift ambulance. She perches near Red's head, trying to stay out of the way of the EMTs who are hooking him up to various drips and monitors while maintaining pressure on his chest.  
  
"How far?" she asks once the activity has settled down slightly, because they're just _waiting_ and it's agonizing.  
  
"Only a few minutes."  
  
"Does he have that long?"  
  
No answer.  
  
_"Does he have that long?"_  
  
"It's going to be close."  
  
At least he's honest, she decides, before pressing for more information. "Do you have a surgeon?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Are they the best?"  
  
"Better than."  
  
Good. That's good.  
  
But Red is still horribly pale. He's bleeding and there's a bullet inside him and he won't open his eyes.  
  
She shifts to sit as close to him as possible, ignores the curious glances of the EMTs as she rests her hand on his head, leans in close to murmur in his ear.  
  
"Just hold on, okay? I need you to fight now, just for a little longer. I have so many things to tell you."  
  
It's probably good to talk to him, right?  
  
"You're going to be fine—you need to be because I'm pretty sure I called you 'baby' back there and I think I'll enjoy watching you be smug about it. So just hold on. I'm right here."  
  
She wonders if, somehow, he can hear her.  
  
"I'll stay right here."

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They can't go to a hospital, for obvious reasons, and so she is not surprised when they instead arrive at what appears to be a building undergoing final renovations. It's completely deserted as they pull into an underground garage before spilling out of the van and into an elevator.  
  
When they arrive on the appropriate floor, the elevator ride taking way longer than she would prefer, she only gets a faint impression of their surroundings—open floor plan, white bare walls, new tile floors.  
  
It's a blur of activity, people swirling around her as they push the gurney down a hall and into a large room. She gets just a glimpse of the setup inside, plastic draped from the ceiling to create a makeshift operating suite, before the door shuts in her face.  
  
She's alone.  
  
She can't go in—she's sure there's a sterilization protocol that they will be following. And while that's good, while she's glad they're going to treat this exactly as if he were in a real hospital, it doesn't change the fact that she feels so maddeningly helpless.  
  
There are so many things she hasn't told him. He was still alive, unconscious but alive, and she should have told him. What if he actually could hear her? What if he dies on the table in there and she didn't take that last opportunity to let him know just how important he is to her? What if that could have made the difference? What if-  
  
"Liz?"  
  
Dembe comes up and puts a hand on her shoulder.  
  
"How is he?" he asks.  
  
He has Red's hat in his other hand.  
  
"Alive." She shrugs helplessly, blinks back the tears stinging her eyes. "Other than that, I- I don't know. But he's alive."  
  
Dembe follows her line of sight to the hat and hesitates briefly before offering it to her, like he doesn't quite know what to do with it.  
  
"I didn't want to leave it behind."  
  
She reaches out to take it from him but stops short when she gets a good look at the state of her hands.  
  
"Dembe?" she chokes out.  
  
He nods, understanding, and leads her to a bathroom.  
  
She spends ten minutes trying to scrub all of Red's blood off her skin.  
  
When she finally gets the blood off—she can't see it, but she swears she can still feel it there—she finds her way back to where Dembe is pacing in front of the room into which they've taken Red.  
  
He hands her Red's hat.  
  
Placing herself directly across from the door of the makeshift operating room, she presses her back against the wall and slides down to sit on the floor. Maybe, if she just stares hard enough at the door, he'll be able to sense that she's here. Maybe it will help.  
  
It's a ridiculous thought, but at this point she's willing to try anything if it means he'll be okay.  
  
When the silence becomes too heavy to bear, she glances over at Dembe, who has been pacing a hole in the floor nonstop.  
  
"I'm sorry I yelled at you back there."  
  
"There's no need for apologies."  
  
"There is," she insists. "You're his best friend, you take better care of him than anyone. I'm the one who abandoned him." She drops her eyes to the hat in her hands. "None of this would have happened if not for me. I shouldn't have taken that out on you."  
  
"Thank you. But I don't plan to hold it against you."  
  
He comes to sit beside her on the floor, legs sprawled out in front of him—she forgets sometimes just how ridiculously large he is.  
  
"And regarding abandonment," Dembe continues, "I don't believe he gave you much choice in the matter."  
  
"He loves me," she whispers dully. It hurts to say. "This whole time, right? And he couldn't stand it anymore so instead of telling me, he sent me away." Her finger traces the ribbon encircling the hat. "And I let him. He knew I would let him."  
  
"It would be best if you heard it from him, but that is… not inaccurate."  
  
She hugs her legs to her chest, drops her forehead to her knees. "God, he's such an idiot."  
  
"Sometimes, yes," he says, agreeing but also sounding enormously fond of the idiot in question.     
  
They sit quietly for a bit before he asks, "Do you love him?"  
  
"Yeah. Yeah, I do."  
  
It's almost shocking, how easy it is to admit it now.  
  
"Good," he says simply. "That will make him very happy."  
  
Red picked a hell of a friend in Dembe and she's overcome with a rush of gratitude for him, for his unending loyalty to the man they both love.  
  
She tilts her head to the side, still resting on her knees, to look up at him.  
  
"How are you doing?"  
  
"Worried." He sighs. "Hopeful."  
  
"He'll be okay," she whispers, trying to convince them both.  
  
Dembe nods. "I believe it will be your turn to monitor his physical therapy."  
  
"Oh, god," she laughs weakly. "Is he completely terrible?"  
  
"Words cannot describe."  
  
"Maybe we can hire someone else to do it," she jokes, appreciating the lighter topic of conversation as she uncurls to rest her head back against the wall.  
  
"He'd eat them alive."  
  
"Might be fun to watch, though." She bumps him with her shoulder. "We could bring snacks."  
  
"It would be worth it just for the look on his face."  
  
"We could-"  
  
She's cut off when the door opens and one of the doctors comes out.  
  
She and Dembe stare at him dumbly for a second before both jumping to their feet.  
  
"What's going on?" she asks at the same time Dembe asks, "Is he going to be alright?"  
  
"They're still working on him, I just thought you might appreciate an update—there is a fair amount of damage and he's lost a lot of blood," the doctor says. "We're going to do the best that we can."  
  
That's horrifyingly vague.  
  
"What are his chances?" Dembe asks, giving voice to a question she cannot ask—she's not sure she wants to face the reality of the answer.  
  
"It's difficult to predict at this point. But considering the circumstances, for the moment he's doing as well as can be expected."  
  
As well as can be expected.  
  
"Is there anything we can do?"  
  
"Not right now." The doctor gives them a sympathetic smile. "I need to get back in there, but I'll let you know if anything changes."  
  
They nod, and both thank him robotically.  
  
She returns to her spot on the floor, and soon Dembe joins her to continue their vigil.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

What feels like an incredibly long time later, Dembe asks, "What happened to Tom?"  
  
"Shot him."  
  
She doesn't want to think about Tom. She doesn't want to waste another single second thinking about Tom.  
  
"Fatally?"  
  
"Very much so. He deserved it," she adds bitterly.  
  
"Where did it happen? I'll send Mr. Kaplan to clean up."  
  
"It doesn't matter."  
  
"It does matter. Raymond would insist on it," he presses.  
  
That's definitely true, and so she gives him the address, watches him pull out his phone and quickly send a text.  
  
"She will take care of it."  
  
"Thanks." She rubs her eyes tiredly. "What about the shooter? Can we track him down?"  
  
"I saw him exiting the warehouse before we made it inside. It's why you got to Raymond before we did—we needed to make sure he didn't escape."  
  
"Is he dead?"  
  
"Very much so."  
  
She would normally like to consider herself above the need for revenge, but in this case, only an hour or two past the feeling of Red bleeding out beneath her hands?  
  
"Good," she says.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Time moves ahead strangely.  
  
By the time the doctor comes out again—she should probably learn his name at some point, but right now she can't bring herself to care—she feels like it has been hours, but also as if only seconds have passed since he spoke to them last.  
  
She and Dembe clamor up from the floor to stand on legs that are stiff and half-asleep.  
  
For the life of her, she can't determine if the expression on the doctor's face is 'I have good news' or 'I'm so sorry for what I'm about to tell you'.  
  
Dembe takes her hand in his, squeezing hard.  
  
"The surgery went well," the doctor says with a small smile.  
  
Staggering back a step with relief, she drops Dembe's hand and grabs him in a joyful, desperate hug—she feels him release a trembling exhale as he hugs her back just as tightly.  
  
She clings to him for a minute, allows some of the stress to melt away— _he's okay, he's okay, he's okay_ —before they let go to let the doctor continue.  
  
"It was touch-and-go for a few minutes there, but he's stable. We were able to extubate him and he's breathing on his own. The best indication of recovery will be when he wakes up."  
  
"When will that be?"  
  
"It's difficult to say. Everyone reacts differently to anesthesia, and his body has undergone a tremendous amount of strain."  
  
"When can we see him?" she asks impatiently. She just wants to _see him._  
  
"That depends." He addresses Dembe, "I would recommend not moving him if at all possible—I assume this location is secure?"  
  
"Yes. We can remain here for a few days if necessary."  
  
"Good. In that case, we'll get him set up in a makeshift recovery room and you can go in to see him shortly."  
  
They both thank him profusely before he retreats back into the other room again.  
  
Wiping away a few tears of breathless relief, she turns to Dembe, and he just looks so happy that she can't help but pull him into another fierce hug.  
  
He laughs, lifting her off her feet a little.  
  
Somehow, the time before they can go in to see Red feels even longer than the countless hours that they spent waiting during the surgery. It takes every ounce of her self control to not demand to see him _now_ , to just barge in there.  
  
"You're sure we can stay here safely?" she asks Dembe, for want of something to talk about.  
  
"Yes, we'll be fine for a time. We can move somewhere more permanent once he's more recovered."  
  
Finally, _finally_ , someone comes out to speak to them—a woman who introduces herself as Janine.  
  
"I'll be staying here around the clock to monitor Mr. Reddington's condition and assist with anything needed regarding his health." She smiles at them encouragingly. "Would you like to go and see him now?"  
  
They both scramble to follow her down the hall.  
  
"Dr. Richards let you know that he's still under, correct?"  
  
"He did," Liz confirms.  
  
"Okay. It may be a while before he comes out of it fully, and he will definitely be groggy when he does so don't be alarmed."  
  
She stops outside of a door down the hall, resting her hand on the doorknob. "Go on in. I'll be in the room just across the hall there if you need anything—I have the ability to monitor him from there so I'll know immediately if anything needs attention."  
  
Janine opens the door, smiles at them one more time, and then leaves them to enter on their own.  
  
Liz crosses the threshold, and there's Red.  
  
Dembe immediately goes to sit by the bed, his hand resting on Red's forearm as he speaks quietly in a language that Liz doesn't understand.  
  
She isn't sure if he's praying or simply talking, but she squeezes his shoulder as she walks around to go sit in the chair on Red's other side.  
  
He's hooked up to a few monitors, a few tubes. There's a large bandage on his chest, though she can't see most of it because the blankets are pulled high on his torso and he's partially zipped up in a brown hoodie.  
  
He looks strangely small.  
  
She has a sudden overwhelming need to know if it's the same hoodie she remembers from last time, or if he just has an identical one stashed with every set of emergency medical supplies that he apparently keeps hidden strategically around the world.  
  
She kind of hopes it's that same one from last time. There's something endearing about the thought.  
  
Staring at his face, she clenches her hands together in her lap.  
  
All this buildup, all this waiting and fearing and agonizing, and now?  
  
She's afraid to touch him.  
  
She doesn't have a _right_ to touch him. How can she?  
  
When he falls silent, Dembe seems to notice her hesitation.  
  
"What is troubling you?" he asks.  
  
"It doesn't- I _shouldn't_ -" She sighs. "It's selfish," she finally admits.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"What if he doesn't want me here?"  
  
Dembe actually _laughs_ before he says, "He wants you here."  
  
"Dembe-"  
  
"He wants you here," he insists, before continuing, "The last time he was shot-"  
  
"Can we not talk about the _other_ time he was shot because of something I'd done?"  
  
"The last time he was shot," he starts again, "What do you think was the first thing he said when he woke up?"  
  
"'Where's my hat?'" she deadpans.  
  
Dembe smiles at the evasion before continuing, "He said your name. He asked about you first, before anything else--he wanted to be sure that you were well."  
  
That mostly just makes her feel worse.  
  
"A lot has happened since then."  
  
"It has, but some things have not changed at all."     
  
Blinking back tears, she leans forward and rests her forearm on the railing at the side of the bed before laying her head on top of it.  
  
Hesitantly, she reaches out her other arm. She brushes her fingers across the back of Red's hand, tracing delicately around the IV taped in place there.  
  
"Hey, Red?" She swallows thickly. "I-I'm here."  
  
Christ, she wants to curl up on the bed against him and just _cry_.  
  
"I know you're tired," she whispers, trying to be brave and shifting her hand so that she's holding his, "but Dembe and I would both really appreciate it if you could wake up sooner rather than later, okay?"  
  
Her thumb brushes rhythmically back and forth against the skin of his hand, warm and _alive_.  
  
"We kind of like you, you know?"

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They sit with him for a long time.  
  
Eventually, Dembe excuses himself to make a few security-related phone calls. She tells him that he can stay in the room for that, but he assures her that he wants the chance to stretch his legs anyway.  
  
Alone with Red for the first time since those terrifying few minutes on the warehouse floor, she can't help but rest her hand on his upper arm, rubbing up and down gently.  
  
She spends long moments like that, still distracted by how nice it is to just be able to touch him, solid beneath her hand.  
  
It takes some time before she notices the slight uptake in the sound of the heart monitor.  
  
Glancing at his face, she sees his eyelids fluttering as he begins to wake up. Before she registers what's happening, before she can rush to call for Dembe or for Janine, Red is awake.  
  
His eyes meet hers.  
  
"Hi," she whispers, grinning at him even though the tears nearly choking her. "How are you feeling?"  
  
His gaze tracks around the room slowly before settling on her and then, suddenly, tension seems to overtake every inch of his body.  
  
His eyes are wide and panicked, hand closest to her grasping clumsily.  
  
"Hurt," he gasps out.  
  
He's on a drip and shouldn't be feeling much of anything—she needs to get help. Surely they can up the dosage if he's in this much pain?  
  
"I'll go get someone," she assures him, "just hold on, it will stop hurting soon."  
  
It doesn't calm him at all—his hand still reaches frantically for her and takes hold of her shirt before she can back away to leave the room.  
  
"Hurt," he rasps again. " _You._ "  
  
She follows his line of sight to her shirt—her very bloody shirt that she still hasn't changed.  
  
Oh, Red.  
  
"No, no, no—I'm okay." She tries to laugh, manages an odd little sound that is probably a sob, and gently detaches his hand from her shirt to hold it between both of hers.  
  
"It's not mine, I'm okay," she says tearfully. "It's okay, everything's going to be fine now."  
  
She brings his hand to her lips to kiss his knuckles.  
  
"Just rest now. We're both going to be fine."  
  
The tension slowly drains from his body, and he blinks sleepily at her for another minute before his eyes flutter shut and the drugs pull him back under.  
  
She can't do much more than stare at him in a state of near-shock until Dembe returns.  
  
"He was awake for a minute," she tells him.  
  
"That's good news!"  
  
"Yeah. Didn't say much. He... saw my shirt and flipped out a little."  
  
"He thought it was yours," Dembe says, realization dawning. He seems to understand the exact type of reaction that would incite.  
  
She nods.  
  
"One of the calls I made—they are going to bring us supplies for a few days, including clothes. You'll be able to change soon. That won't happen again."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
She stares at Red, laying her hand back on his arm and shaking her head a little in disbelief.  
  
Shot for the second time in a year, his chest split down the middle, and his first waking thought is still for her safety.  
  
"Idiot," she whispers fondly.  
  
He always has been a fan of dramatic entrances.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She and Dembe sit with him in shifts, allowing the other to get some rest or to go stretch their legs. It's good that they're both there to force each other to do so, because otherwise she's sure they wouldn't want to leave his side.  
  
Red is in and out for quite a while. Sometimes he talks a little, sometimes he drifts back under almost immediately, but when she's the one sitting with him, it always starts the same.  
  
Every time, without fail, he sees her and his face lights up.  
  
"Lizzie," he breathes when his eyes open this time around.  
  
There's that smile.  
  
"Hi again," she whispers, returning his smile and hoping he understands she's just as happy to see him as he is to see her. "How are you feeling?"  
  
"Blurry." His brow furrows with confusion and she laughs softly. He never remembers being awake the time before, though he does seem a little more coherent now.  
  
"You've been pretty out of it." She rests her hand on his cheek, can't seem to stop touching him now that she's started. "They've got you on the good stuff."  
  
"Good stuff," he repeats a little sloppily, leaning into her hand. "Mm, good dream."  
  
Lightly teasing, she asks, "This is a dream?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
She smiles, indulging him. "Why's that?"  
  
"You came back."  
  
Well.  
  
That hurt.  
  
"That's what you dream about?" she asks in a small voice.  
  
"Yeah." He stares up at her, gaze full of more than she's ever seen—has he always _looked_ at her like that?  
  
"It's my favorite," he adds happily.  
  
It's heartbreaking and certainly nothing less than she deserves—still, she kind of wishes he would stop making her cry, however unintentionally he may be doing it.  
  
His eyes flutter shut and she thinks he's fallen back asleep when he seems to shake himself a little and wrenches his eyes back open. The behavior repeats several more times before she intervenes to try and help, taking his hand in hers.  
  
"Rest now, it's alright. You can sleep if you want."  
  
"Want to stay with you," he mumbles.  
  
"I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here when you wake up."  
  
He shakes his head against the pillow. "Won't be. Never are."  
  
"I will, you'll see. I'll stay right here."  
  
His hand clutches hers tighter. "Miss you."  
  
This sweet, ridiculous man.  
  
She misses him too and she tells him so, even though he probably won't remember. She'll tell him again and again until he does.  
  
He drifts back under with a smile on his face.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Pausing with her hand on the handle of the slightly ajar door to Red's recovery room, Liz takes a moment to listen to the conversation taking place within.  
  
"Janine, if you're going to insist upon doing this, I think I at least deserve some kind of reward, and I really think it should be agreed upon beforehand."  
  
"A _reward?"_  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I'm not sure this is a situation meriting a reward, Mr. Reddington."  
  
"I disagree—it's going to hurt."  
  
"It's not going to hurt."  
  
"See, doctors always say that before they do something that hurts."  
  
"Ah, but I'm a nurse, not a doctor, so you're in the clear on this one."  
  
Laughing, Liz enters the room to find Janine standing at Red's bedside. "What truly horrible thing are you doing to him now, Janine?"  
  
"Changing his bandage."  
  
Liz rolls her eyes. "Really, Red?"  
  
"But it's _not_ just changing the bandage, is it? _Is it_ , Janine?"  
  
Janine sighs. "I will also be checking the incision."  
  
"She will also be checking the incision," Red announces.  
  
Liz smiles. "And?"  
  
"She's going to _poke_ me, Lizzie." His hand gestures over his chest. "They just cut me open, and she's going to poke and prod me right where they did it."  
  
"You poor thing," Janine mutters unsympathetically.  
  
"It hurts!"  
  
"Do you know what will hurt more, Mr. Reddington? An infection. Also, death."  
  
Shaking her head in amusement, Liz turns to leave and give Red some privacy. "I'll come back when you're done."  
  
"Lizzie, wait!"  
  
She turns back. "You need something?"  
  
"Stay and distract me."  
  
"Are you sure?" She would have expected him to not want her to see him vulnerable.  
  
"Yes—come and talk to me while the mean nurse enacts her torture."  
  
She walks over to stand by the bed and rests her hand on his shoulder.  
  
Janine joins Liz in her amused head-shaking. "You ever get used to this?" she asks about Red's behavior.  
  
"Not really, but you do get numb to it."  
  
"I am right here," Red grumbles.  
  
"Yes, we see you. Now shush." She squeezes his shoulder. "Let her do what she needs to do." She's a little nervous. She hasn't seen beneath the bandage yet.  
  
Janine is nothing if not efficient, and she quickly peels back the bandage, rolling her eyes when Red winces dramatically at the pull of the tape.  
  
Liz can't help but stare at it.  
  
It's an incision—angry red line, dark contrast of staples at short increments all along the length of it. It's starting to bruise on either side but it looks neatly done, and she's sure they did a good job. It looks as good as it possibly can.  
  
But, shit, it's a big incision.  
  
"Looks a little inflamed," Janine says, pressing on it lightly, "but nothing too serious. We'll just keep an eye on it."  
  
She takes a clean bandage from a tray at her side and begins taping it into place.  
  
Red raises an eyebrow. "Is that it?"  
  
"That's it," Janine confirms.  
  
"You're certainly much better at this than the maniac in charge last time. Now—what's my reward?"  
  
"Well, you're alive."  
  
"Boring," he sing-songs. "I want a steak dinner."  
  
"You can have pudding."  
  
"Chocolate?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"Deal."  
  
Janine heads for the door then, disposing of the old bandage on her way.  
  
Red's eyes narrow and he shouts after her, "You were going to give me chocolate pudding today anyway, weren't you?"  
  
"Yes," she calls over her shoulder.  
  
He pulls a face at her retreating back before glancing at Liz.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
She nods. "Yeah."  
  
"Not the nicest thing to look at, I know," he says, gesturing to his chest.  
  
He thinks that she's upset at the sight of him hurt, at the sight the aftermath, and that's true—she hates to think about him in pain, about how he nearly died less than a couple days ago.  
  
But mostly, and she can't tell him this because they still haven't _talked_ , but mostly she's thinking about how, once the is incision healed, she's going to want to kiss that scar in desperate, breathless gratitude. It's not ugly at all—that scar is why he's still _alive_. Fuck, but she wants to press her mouth to every single _inch_ of it, followed by every single inch of _him_ , and-  
  
Okay, it might be time for them to talk.  
  
Trying to steel herself, she moves to sit in the chair by the bed.  
  
"Red, we should probably talk about what happened."  
  
Red raises an eyebrow. "I think it's quite obvious what happened."  
  
"...it is?"  
  
"Yes—I was just tricked into accepting chocolate pudding as a reward for good behavior when, clearly, I was going to be receiving it anyway."  
  
She can't help it—she just _laughs_. Damning the consequences, she leans up to drop an affectionate kiss to his forehead.  
  
"You are a very silly person," she tells him.  
  
He smiles up at her.  
  
"What did you want to talk about?" he asks.  
  
She tries to think of a way to ease them into it, but honestly, she just wants to get this over with. It might be better to just jump right in.  
  
"That meeting at the warehouse," she tells him. "You didn't set that with me."  
  
He nods. "I know."  
  
"What? How?"  
  
"The message didn't sound anything like you."     
  
That in and of itself is strange. Tom was, as he said, very good at pretending to be other people.  
  
Red continues on to ask, "How did you find out about it?"  
  
She can barely look at him when she admits, "It was Tom."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"He's dead."  
  
"I'm… sorry," he says haltingly.  
  
"Don't be," she insists. "Don't ever, ever be sorry for that."  
  
"I don't understand-"  
  
"I killed him, Red," she says softly.     
  
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "Why?"  
  
"Because he deserved it."  
  
"I can't say I disagree, but what could have led you to do that?"  
  
She sighs. "I realized that what I was looking for wasn't there. He was never the person I thought he was, and even though he was able to keep pretending, I wasn't. I told him that I was leaving and he… changed. The mask fell off, I guess." She shakes her head, still angry with herself for not having seen it sooner. "He told me what he'd done, that he was going to have you killed, so I made him tell me where. And then he said some… some really terrible things. So I killed him."    
  
"I'm sorry," he says, sincerely this time.  
  
"I'm not." It's the truth.  
  
"I'm sorry that you had to go through that."  
  
"It was worth it. All I wanted was to go home," she says significantly. She needs to get him to understand.  
  
"I know you want your life back—it's why I went to the meeting, even though I knew it wasn't you. I needed to make sure that there wasn't anything new in play that would interfere."  
  
"Interfere with what?"  
  
"Getting your name cleared." He offers her a small smile. "It's done, Lizzie. Or, extremely close to it. A few more pieces need to be moved into place, but it won't be long now."  
  
It's _done?_ He did it?  
  
"And the cabal?"  
  
"Same story. It's all tied together, and so the death blow to them will be what creates the opportunity to free you. You've done excellent work these past few months—this wouldn't have happened without you."  
  
She shrugs. "It might have taken longer, but you'd still have gotten it done."  
  
"No, Elizabeth. Truly, you played an instrumental part in this." He shakes his head as if in awe. "You are… extraordinary."  
  
Extraordinary, he calls her. Still. Everything she's done to hurt him, and… _still_.  
  
She's a little in shock.  
  
"I thought you'd be happier," he says quietly after a moment of her silence.  
  
"I am happy. I am," she insists. "I'm sorry, it's just a lot to process."  
  
How does she tell him?  
  
"This is what you want though," he says, beginning to sound the slightest bit unsure. "I don't know about returning to the FBI, that might be a hard sell, but you can go back to DC. See your friends. You can start your life again."  
  
How do you tell someone that no, actually, I don't necessarily want this thing that you've been working so hard to give me?  
  
How do you tell someone that you've been a colossal fucking idiot and that, believe it or not, you're actually tear-your-heart-out in love with them and could they maybe overlook how unfairly you've treated them in the past? That you can't bear the thought of being separated from them again?  
  
How do you even _begin_ that conversation?  
  
"I don't want to go back to DC," she blurts.  
  
His brow furrows. "You said that you wanted to go home—that it was all you wanted."  
  
"Red?"  
  
"DC _is_ your home, I thought…" He sighs, stops himself. "But if you want to go somewhere else instead, of course I can make that happen-"  
  
_"Red."_  
  
She hesitates before reaching for his hand, gently covering it with hers.  
  
"Not really what I meant," she whispers.  
  
He stares at her hand on his like it's the strangest thing he's ever seen. Like he's fairly convinced he's imagining it.  
  
He won't look at her when he admits, "I don't understand."  
  
She can't really blame him for that.  
  
"Six months ago," she starts, "you said that this was all about where I truly wanted to be. It took me way too long to figure it out, but... _this_ is where I want to be. And I'm so sorry that I left, that I made you feel like forcing me away was the only option-"  
  
"I shouldn't have."  
  
"No, you shouldn't have—but I shouldn't have let you. Everything was spiraling out of control and so I jumped at the first familiar thing I saw. It was a mistake."     
  
He's very quiet for a while.  
  
"I miss you," he finally says with eyes still fixed on their hands. Barely audible, just a breathy exhale of words.  
  
She can't imagine how hard it was for him to say it, but she figures if he can manage that, then she can be brave, too.  
  
Immensely grateful that she has a hold of the hand without the IV in it, she changes her grip, pressing her palm to his before lacing their fingers together.  
  
"I miss you too."  
  
His eyes shoot up to look at her and he smiles—he looks so, so grateful. Like he could have never even dreamt up the idea that she'd actually been missing him too.  
  
She'd called him damaged, once. She was right, she knows she was, and she's suddenly _sick_ over it because she finally realizes full the scope of what she'd done six months ago. She'd proven right whatever piece of him it is that believes he doesn't deserve anything. She hadn't said it out loud, hadn't even realized she was doing it, but though her actions she'd sent a clear message.  
  
Whatever voice is in his head that tells him he isn't worth it, that no one wants him, that he's meant to be lonely—she'd made it her voice.  
  
"I didn't know," she manages around the lump in her throat. "That you… and that I…" She stares at him imploringly. She needs him to _understand_. "Red, I didn't know."  
  
"It's alright."  
  
She shakes her head, teary-eyed. "It's not."  
  
"Elizabeth…" He smiles at her again, and it strangely reminds her of the way he looked at her from the Box during the Anslo Garrick invasion. Like _he's_ trying to comfort _her_.  
  
"I'm glad you're here," he says.  
  
She had no idea how much she'd needed to hear that.  
  
"Red, will you do something for me?"  
  
"Can I do it within the confines of a hospital bed?"  
  
It coaxes a small laugh out of her, and he looks awfully pleased with himself for that.  
  
She squeezes his hand. "Will you tell me about some of what you've been doing the past few months?"  
  
"Of course. What do you want to hear about?"  
  
She just wants to hear his voice—she misses talking to him, misses his stupid stories.  
  
"I want to hear about anything you'd like to tell me."

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Red, being a man of no small amount of energy, is not particularly fond of being told to stay still.  
  
She and Dembe have the help of a painful recovering bullet wound to assist them in keeping him in place, but they do still need to find ways to help entertain him, even this early on in his recovery period.  
  
And so, he's re-teaching her chess.  
  
Sam had taught her when she was young, but it's been so long since she last played that she's completely out of practice.  
  
Red is, unsurprisingly, incredibly good at it. She hasn't managed to beat him yet in the several matches that they've played, but there have been a few times that she's given him pause, where he's watched her make a move and looked terribly pleased that she'd done something unexpected and managed to throw him off.  
  
He's got her stumped during this match in particular, but that might also be because she's gearing herself up to do something she's been trying to do since he woke up.  
  
"I need to tell you something," she starts, pushing the chessboard away after she makes her move.  
  
"Is it that you're giving up?" he teases. "Because while I realize my particular brand of chess genius can be somewhat intimidating-"  
  
"I love you."  
  
She's never actually seen him speechless before.  
  
He looks like someone just sucker-punched him.  
  
"You don't need to say anything," she assures him quickly. "I know I hurt you, and it's complicated, but we've made so many mistakes as a result of just not _telling_ each other things and I don't want that to happen again—I don't want you to have to spend any more time not knowing how important you are-"  
  
"I love you too."  
  
"You do?" She's spent so much time preparing herself to not hear it back.  
  
He nods, swallowing thickly. "Of course."  
  
That's what he says, just like that. _Of course._ Like it has never been a question for him, never not been completely natural—of course I blink, of course I breathe, of course I love you.  
  
Of course she kisses him, then.  
  
And in most of the thoughts she's had about kissing him over the last few months—and there have been a fair amount—it's always been sort of frenzied and just this side of desperate and all kinds of longing.  
  
Instead, it's so…  
  
It's _so..._  
  
Red kisses her softly, tenderly. Like he's a little scared, like she's the best thing in his world.  
  
She tries to kiss him so that he'll never doubt again that he is the very best thing in hers.  
  
When it ends, when she opens her eyes, he's _beaming_.  
  
"So," she says when she finds her voice again, smiling back and unable to help feeling a little shy. "We love each other."  
  
"That does appear to be the case."  
  
No man barely thirty-six hours out from emergency, life-saving surgery should be able to look so happy, but somehow Red manages it.  
  
"Does this mean you'll finally tell me what really happened to you and Dembe that time in Taiwan?"  
  
He laughs. "Absolutely not."  
  
"Come on," she cajoles. "There's like a rule that you have to tell me stuff now."  
  
"Not this stuff. This one goes with me to my grave."  
  
"Alright, I'm going to ignore that very poorly timed 'to your grave' comment-" she glares at him "-and warn you that I will eventually figure out how to get this information out of you."  
  
"Do your worst," he taunts, the most amazing sparkle in his eyes. "I am well-versed in resisting torture."  
  
Deciding it's time to test a long-standing theory, she leans in and kisses him again.  
  
And because he has after all just been shot in the chest, she needs to keep it within reason, but she does her very best to make it sort of frenzied and a little desperate and just all _kinds_ of longing.  
  
"Please, Red?" she whispers against his mouth.  
  
It takes a ridiculously long time for him to open his eyes again.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
Laughing at his dazed expression, she quickly kisses him one more time.  
  
"Never mind." She pulls the chessboard back over. "It's your turn."  
  
He still beats her, the smug bastard, but he makes three really stupid moves before his brain starts working again, so she figures she'll consider this one a win anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

One might think that arguing with Red would be easier once being openly and reciprocally in love with him.  
  
One would be wrong about that.  
  
"Did you at least let Janine check you over this morning before she left?"  
  
"No, because she didn't need to," Red protests. "I sent her home because I'm _fine_."  
  
Their argument is interrupted when a head pops around the door frame. "You about ready to head out? We'll have the place completely cleaned out once you're gone."  
  
"Ah, Dr. Richards!" Red waves him into the room. "Please tell Elizabeth that I am perfectly healthy."  
  
The doctor arches an eyebrow. "We just dug a bullet out of you, Mr. Reddington."  
  
"Relatively speaking."  
  
Liz sighs. "He feels warm," she tell Dr. Richards. "I think he has a fever."  
  
"It's fairly common—many people develop a low-grade fever just after surgery." He checks Red's temperature and nods. "I wouldn't worry about it too much unless it climbs more than two degrees higher than it is now. He's fine to travel."  
  
"Are you sure? Maybe we shouldn't move him yet."  
  
"I'm okay, Lizzie. Really."  
  
"Or maybe we should have a doctor on the plane with us," she pushes. "It's a long flight."  
  
"Dr. Ahmed will be waiting for us—you'll like her. She has a fantastic accent, it's like music."  
  
Honestly—arguing with him is like banging her head against a brick wall.  
  
"Fine," she concedes. "But you will call Dr. Ahmed before we take off and tell her that she needs to be ready to look you over the second we get there."  
  
"Should I be worried you're so eager to have another woman put her hands on me?"  
  
"Red, this isn't a joke." She lays her palm on his forehead—he's definitely warm.  
  
"I got a fever last time, too," he assures her, capturing the hand she has pressed to his forehead and bringing it to his lips instead. "It's important that we move somewhere safe. I'll be fine."  
  
"I'm holding you to that."  
  
He smiles. "Fair enough."

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

By the time they're halfway there, his fever has spiked four degrees.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Liz paces back and forth outside the door to Red's room.  
  
"Do you think he needs to go to a hospital?"  
  
"You know we can't."  
  
"We can if the choices are that or him dying," she insists. "He survived a bullet to the chest, Dembe. _Again_. We're not losing him to a _fever_."  
  
They'd arrived at the residence only twenty minutes ago. Under different circumstances, Liz is sure that she'd be awed by how beautiful it is—this is a particular secret of Red's, a place he can go without worry of being found.  
  
Under these particular circumstances, she is sick with worry.  
  
Just then, Dr. Ahmed emerges from Red's room and Liz makes a beeline for her, Dembe not far behind.  
  
"What's going on? Is he going to be okay?"  
  
"He's developed an infection. It was probably exacerbated by the stress that traveling put on his body."  
  
"I'm going to _kill_ that doctor," Liz growls.  
  
"It's not as bad as it sounds," she assures them. "I've started him on antibiotics and fluids, and I've taken a sample to test and make sure we're not dealing with something more resistant."    
  
"Is that likely?" Dembe asks.  
  
"Not terribly, no. But it's better to be safe with something like this."  
  
"So what now?"  
  
"It will take some time before the antibiotics start helping, and though I've given him something to help lower it, the fever is going to linger. We'll keep an eye on it, make sure it doesn't get any higher. He should be showing signs of improvement by tomorrow."  
  
"Can we go in?"  
  
"Of course. He's sleeping, which is good. His body is working hard to fight this right now and so he needs as much rest as possible. Don't be concerned if he wakes up and seems somewhat delirious—that can happen with a high fever. Just try to keep him calm and still."  
  
The doctor pulls on her coat before collecting her bag and heading for the door.  
  
"I'm going to take this sample to get tested and will be back in the morning to check on him. Don't hesitate to call me with any concerns."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
Dr Ahmed smiles. "I know it's difficult, but try not to worry too much. The possibility for complications exists, but as of right now there's no reason to believe he won't pull through this."  
  
She sees herself out, and Liz turns to Dembe.  
  
"When he wakes up, who gets to give him hell first for being so damn stubborn and not getting checked out when he had the chance?"  
  
He laughs. "I think it's my turn," he says, picking up his coat.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"We need some supplies. I won't be gone long."  
  
"Alright. I'm going to go glare at the idiot in the other room until he wakes up."  
  
Dembe laughs all the way out the door.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She doesn't actually glare at him—she's way too worried for glaring.  
  
Red doesn't stay asleep for long, and she's only sitting by his side for a short time before he wakes up.  
  
"Hey, you," she whispers with a smile.  
  
He blinks sleepily and she can already tell that he's really out of it.  
  
"Do you remember what happened?" she asks gently, taking his hand.  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
"Well, you're okay. That's most important." She squeezes his hand. "You were shot and needed to have emergency surgery. They fixed everything up, but we had to move and you developed an infection along the way. It should be better soon but you're running a heck of a fever right now."  
  
She smiles and reaches over to brush her fingers across his brow.  
  
"You just never can do things the easy way, can you?"  
  
She rests her hand on his forehead to check his fever, feels her heart clench when he nudges into it.  
  
Voice hoarse and slurring a little, he asks, "Where are we?"  
  
"We're safe. We're in your super secret house."  
  
His eyes track slowly around the room. "Dembe?"  
  
"He's here. He's going to be happy to see that you're awake, we've been worried. He just went to the store, he'll be back soon."  
  
"Chest hurts," he mumbles, lifting a hand to rub at the offending area.  
  
"I know, I'm sorry." She takes her hand off his forehead to catch the hand he's using to fuss with his bandages, moves his arm to rest back at his side. "Try not to touch it, that's where you were shot."  
  
His brow furrows. "I was shot?"  
  
He's already forgotten—she tries to hold back a smile at the sight of his sleepy confusion but doesn't completely succeed. "Yeah, a few days ago."  
  
"Oh." He's quiet for a moment, but then his eyes widen a little and he asks, "Are you okay?"  
  
"I'm okay. Happy that you're going to be fine."  
  
"Is Dembe okay?"  
  
"Yes, Dembe's okay. He'll be here soon."  
  
He looks down at their hands, laces and unlaces their fingers a few times.  
  
"I like your hands," he tells her, tracing her palm with his index finger. "They're pretty."  
  
She smiles, watches him completely focused on his task. "Oh, yeah?"  
  
"Uh huh. Can I keep them?"  
  
She bites her lip to keep from laughing. "I kind of need them."  
  
"Oh." His brow furrows as he thinks for a minute. "Then, can I keep you?"  
  
Well _damn_.  
  
"Yeah," she says around the lump in her throat. "I think we can make that happen."  
  
"Good." He nods, his eyes drifting closed for a bit before he opens them again.  
  
"I'm so tired."  
  
"Then you should sleep. Get some more rest, once your fever goes down I think you'll feel a lot-" she's interrupted by a jaw-cracking yawn. "-better. Sorry."  
  
"You're tired too," he observes, still playing with her hand.  
  
"I am," she agrees. "I am very, very tired."  
  
"Did you get shot too?"  
  
She laughs a little. "No, Red. I wasn't shot." She rubs her eyes and runs a hand down her face. "Kind of wish I had been, though," she mutters.  
  
His hand stops moving over hers. "But it hurts."  
  
"Yeah, I know. I just wish it could have been me and not you, that's all. I wish we could switch."  
  
He goes very quiet for a while and she takes the time to just enjoy being with him when he's actually awake.  
  
"No," he blurts suddenly. "No, I don't like that."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You, shot. I don't like it." His grip on her hand suddenly tightens and his other arm reaches up to grasp her shoulder. "Please don't get shot?"  
  
"Woah, easy," she warns as he winces against the pain of his sudden movement. She helps ease him back to a more relaxed position. "Careful, you're going to hurt yourself."  
  
"Don't get shot?"  
  
"I'll do my best."  
  
"Thank you." He slowly looks around the room again. "Lizzie?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Where are we?"  
  
She smiles gently and reminds him.  
  
He glances down at their hands.  
  
"You're here," he says.  
  
"I'm here."  
  
"And Dembe's here?"  
  
"Dembe's here."  
  
"Okay," he says to himself. "Okay."  
  
He goes quiet again before reaching up to rub agitatedly at his face, and then down to fuss with his blankets.  
  
"Are you hot? Or cold?" she asks.  
  
"Yes."  
  
It's not funny.  
  
It's _not_.  
  
He's hurt, and feverish, and it is _not funny_.  
  
But he's proving that even the best of men can turn into children when they don't feel well, and she is just so tired and so relieved that he's alive.  
  
So, fine.  
  
It's a little funny.  
  
"You're hot _and_ cold?"  
  
He nods very seriously. "Yes."  
  
"Okay," she says with a smile, feeling almost unbearably in love with him as she leans over to kiss his forehead. "How about I get you another blanket?"  
   
"Will you sit with me?"  
   
"I am sitting with you."  
  
"More?"  
  
More? "You mean on the bed?"  
  
"Yes. That would be better."  
  
There is a decent amount of room on the bed on his other side, but he was just shot and had major surgery. "I don't want to hurt you—you're all bruised up and you've got the IV and everything…"  
  
"Please?"  
  
She had no idea his eyes could get that wide and pleading.  
  
"Wow," she breathes disbelievingly. "As if I could say no to that face."  
  
"My face?"  
  
"Yeah, that puppy-dog thing you just did. I'm in big trouble if you figure out how to do that all the time."  
  
"I'm sorry-"  
  
"Shh, no, I'm teasing you," she tells him. "I'm just teasing. Sorry, I shouldn't do that when you're not really processing."  
  
"Because I was shot," he says, clearly proud of himself for remembering that detail.  
  
"Because you were shot."  
  
She walks around to the other side of the bed, climbing up on top of the covers and sliding over to sit at his side.  
  
He starts to lift his arm to put around her, groans and winces horribly when he feels how it affects his injuries.  
  
"Oh, no. No sir. That arm stays right where it is." She lowers it back down to the bed and rests her hand on his forearm. "You're going to pull a stitch or something if you do that."  
  
He pouts spectacularly again, and this time she laughs.  
  
"Uh oh—it's becoming self-aware." She's pretty sure he didn't actually do it on purpose—he doesn't seem to be tracking most of their conversation for more that a minute or two—but he smiles at her laughter and that's good enough for her.  
  
The bed is angled up like a hospital bed to keep him elevated, and so she reclines at his side and presses as close as she dares, sliding up a bit so that their shoulders are level.  
  
Red takes it a step further, and before she can stop him from moving he manages to scoot himself down far enough to press his face into the side of her upper arm.  
  
"You shouldn't move around so much."  
  
He makes a disgruntled sort of sound that she takes to mean, "Leave me alone," and so, rolling her eyes in amusement, she does.  
  
She thinks he falls asleep for a bit, but then he starts fidgeting, his hands picking restlessly at the blankets.  
  
"Lizzie?" he finally whispers.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"My chest hurts."  
  
It is so close to a whimper that something in her _breaks_.  
  
Between the fever and the pain medication and how tired he must be, this is Red completely without a filter, and his main three concerns seem to be: Dembe's safety, her safety, and asking her to comfort him when he hurts.  
  
She's known about the first two for a while.  
  
She doesn't want to think about how long he's been aching for the third.  
  
"I know it hurts, I know." She presses her lips to his head, whispers, "I know, baby. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."  
  
His hand finds the hem of her shirt, tugging on it clumsily.  
  
"You call me that?"  
  
He would, naturally, be capable of honing in on that tiny detail, even when feverish and delirious.  
  
"Apparently."  
  
It just slips out. Though in her defense, it only seems to happen when she's feeling overwhelmingly protective of him.  
  
He nuzzles his face against her arm. "I like it."  
  
"Yeah, I figured you might."  
  
She brings her hand up to rest on his cheek.  
  
"God, you're really warm," she sighs against him.  
  
"Hand's cold," he mumbles. "Feels good."  
  
"That's good. Try to get some more sleep now."  
  
He nods, makes a pleased sound when her hand slides to the side of his head so her thumb can rub gentle circles against his temple.  
  
"Love you," he breathes.  
  
In the next minute, he's asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

She actually manages to fall asleep for a short time herself, though she wakes up long before he does.  
  
By the time he does start to wake up, it's late morning. They've checked his temperature a few times and it has, thankfully, dropped several degrees throughout the course of the night.  
  
"Hey." He smiles sleepily when he sees her, palming a little clumsily at his eyes.  
  
"Hey yourself. How do you feel?"  
  
"Like I was hit by a train," he groans. "Repeatedly, and with extreme prejudice."  
  
She grins—he definitely feels better. He's coherent enough to snark, at least.  
  
"The fever is down some, that's improvement."  
  
"I don't remember anything, was it bad?"  
  
"It was pretty high. You were delirious for a while there."  
  
He groans again. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that."  
  
"You were very sweet," she assures him. "I wish I'd gotten video evidence, come to think of it."  
  
"It's not nice to take advantage of sick people."  
  
"You're not sick."  
  
"It's not nice to take advantage of shot people."  
  
She laughs. "You'd probably get a kick out of seeing it, honestly."  
  
"Well, there's always next time," he offers helpfully.  
  
_"Next time?"_  
  
"Um."  
  
"No. Never again, Raymond. Never, _ever_ again."  
  
She can't go through all this again. Hell, his luck isn't that good—what are the chances he'll come out alive of something like this a third time?  
  
He grins at her. "You called me Raymond."  
  
Huh. So she did.  
  
She makes a face, scrunches her nose. "Yeah, that was weird."  
  
"It wasn't _that_ weird," he says. "I assume it's only for when I'm in trouble?"  
  
"Maybe, but I think if that were the case, it would be the only thing I ever called you."  
  
"I'm not that bad."  
  
"You are exactly that bad—you are nothing but trouble. Constant, ridiculous-" she kisses his cheek "-wonderful trouble." Sitting back, she asks, "You hungry?"  
  
"Not really."  
  
"Are you sure? You should really eat something if you can. Plus, I have been authorized to offer not only red jello _and_ green jello but also, wait for it... orange jello."  
  
"Is the red one cherry or strawberry?"  
  
She raises an eyebrow. "It is red."  
  
"Yes, but what _flavor_ is it?"  
  
"Oh my god."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You are a child."  
  
"I hate cherry."  
  
"You are," she teases. "You are a tiny, picky child."  
  
"Lizzie..." he whines.  
  
Laughing, she leans over to kiss his forehead. "Alright, you big baby. I'll taste it first if it isn't labeled."  
  
Shaking her head in amusement as she heads for the kitchen, she takes a few cups of jello out of the refrigerator, making sure to get at least one of each color before grabbing a few spoons as well.  
  
Going back to his room and depositing everything on the table next to the bed, she holds up one of the red ones while lowering herself to sit on the mattress by his hip.  
  
"The little individual cups are no longer in the bigger package they came in, so I have no idea what flavor this is."  
  
"It's not labelled on top?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
He huffs. "That's dreadful marketing."  
  
"One shudders to think," she says with almost a completely straight face.  
  
He's looking at her expectantly, and so she peels the foil lid off of the cup, reaches for a spoon, and takes a small bite.  
  
"What does it taste like?" he asks.  
  
"Well," she says very seriously, "mostly it tastes like all other flavored things that are red taste."  
  
"That doesn't make any sense."  
  
" _That_ doesn't make any sense?"  
  
His hand reaches out. "Give it here."  
  
She tucks the spoon into the cup and starts to hand it to him before pulling it back and holding it out of his reach.  
  
"Are you going to pout if it turns out that it's cherry and I made you taste it?"  
  
"I do not pout."  
  
"You are pouting right now."  
  
"You're being very mean."  
  
"You're being very cute."  
  
She's not positive, but she's pretty sure his ears actually blush the faintest hint of red in response.  
  
She hands him the jello before walking around to the other side of the bed and watches him take a bite, considering for a moment before he smiles up at her.  
  
"It's good."  
  
"Thank heavens." She scoots over to sit at his side. "Strawberry has saved us all."  
  
He takes another bite.  
  
"I think it might actually be raspberry, which is better."  
  
She laughs helplessly and presses her face to his shoulder. "You are the worst."  
  
He doesn't say anything, but tilts his head to the side to rest on hers.  
  
It's how Dembe finds them a short while later.  
  
"Why do you always choose the red things?" he asks in greeting as he enters the room and notices Red's snack.  
  
"Narcissism," Red answers cheerfully.  
  
Liz smiles. "We were very worried for a moment there that it might be cherry flavored."  
  
"Why would I buy him cherry? Cherry is terrible." Dembe pulls the chair closer to the bed before dropping into it and propping his feet up by Red's legs on the mattress, grabbing a spoon and a red jello of his own. "We want him to feel better, not worse."  
  
_"See?"_ Red insists triumphantly. "Dembe understands."  
  
"Yes, well Dembe has had much longer to grow accustomed to all of your delightful eccentricities-"  
  
"That is true," Dembe says around a ridiculously large spoonful of jello.  
  
"-so give me some time to catch up."  
  
She leans over Red carefully to reach the table, snatching up a cup of jello and a spoon before returning to rest at his side, bumping his forehead affectionately with hers as she passes.  
  
He has the most goofy smile on his face.  
  
"Look at you, all smiley. Are you delirious again?" she teases.  
  
He kisses her cheek. "I'm happy."  
  
"You were just shot in the chest. Then it got infected. Your temperature is still up at something like a hundred and one. You cannot possibly be _this_ happy."  
  
He glances further down the bed, where her her lower leg has hooked snugly over his.  
  
He grins.  
  
"Try me."  
  
Well, if the pout doesn't get her, that mile-wide smile most certainly will.  
  
"Alright, dial down the charm," she tells him, laughing and playfully pushing his cheek to turn his face away from her. "Eat your jello."  
  
"Finished." He holds up the empty cup to show her.  
  
"Want another one?"  
  
He glances at the remaining cup on the table, which is green.  
  
"No, thank you."  
  
She's just taken the first bite of hers—orange, which is blessedly simple since that is both the color and the flavor—when something dawns on her.  
  
She smirks at him around the spoon.  
  
"You want this one, don't you?"        
  
"I'm fine."  
  
Not the least bit convinced by that performance, she offers it to him. "Here."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Of course. Let's try not to need this rule again, but I think it's only fair that the person who has most recently been in a fight with a bullet gets first dibs on the jello."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
She makes a hand motion at Dembe, who interprets correctly, stretching over to pick up the remaining jello and tossing it to her.  
  
Opening it up and taking a bite—she thinks it might be lime—she asks, "Dembe, why would you even buy the green ones if he doesn't like green?"  
  
"I don't know every one of his jello preferences," he responds. "I am not his mother."  
  
"You knew about the cherry," she points out.  
  
"Everyone knows that cherry is the worst."  
  
" _Lizzie_ thinks that they all taste the _same_ ," Red says melodramatically.  
  
And something about his tone, the look on his face… she's suddenly struck with the most amazing, impossible, _wonderful_ thought.  
  
Dwelling on it for a moment, she's startled when she hears Red ask her something.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"I asked what's got you looking so happy—you're grinning." He tilts his head a little, looking at her curiously.  
  
"Oh, it's nothing." She looks down, smiling into her jello. "I'll tell you later."  
  
"Promise?"  
  
It seems a little juvenile, a little strange, for him to ask like that, and her eyes dart up to meet his.  
  
And he's got this look on his face, this tender, open, _adoring_ look, and she realizes that even though they've already talked about it and worked it out, this is him telling her once and for all that she's forgiven for that time she broke a promise to him. He's asking her to promise now because he believes that she'll keep it—he trusts her to keep it.  
  
"Yeah," she tells him softly. "I promise."  
  
She will tell him eventually. It's too much now, he's not ready to hear it and she definitely isn't ready to say it.  
  
It's just…  
  
She's pretty sure their kids are going to hate cherry jello, too.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They do.  
  
(But they don't mind green.)

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 Fin.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
